


Words I Couldn't Say

by srmiller



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, westallen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2014-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-26 07:13:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2642849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/srmiller/pseuds/srmiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Iris puts herself in danger Barry attempts to get her to understand why he's so upset but when she misunderstands him he lets slip the one secret everyone knows about but her</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words I Couldn't Say

“I don’t get why you’re making such a big deal out of this Barry.”

Barry stared at Iris with increasing frustration because how could she have possibly thought running in to a burning was a good idea? How could he not make a big deal out of it?

They were standing in his apartment, it was the most private place he could think of-her dad was too likely to show up at her house, and God knew there was no getting privacy at the lab-so after grabbing Iris and running them to his place he had asked her with what he considered admirable calm what the hell she had been thinking.

And now they were here.

“You don’t get why I’m a pissed you nearly got yourself killed?”

“You put yourself in danger all the time as the Flash,” Iris pointed out, her anger now a match for his. “And if you think for one second-“

“I have powers, Iris! Not only can I outrun a fire, I have the ability-“

“To heal super fast,” she waved away the old information he’d revealed when he’d first admitted to being the Flash, not that she hadn’t already been suspecting it for months. Apparently he was not nearly as good a liar as he thought.

Neither was her father.

“Not to mention I have Caitlin and Cisco backing me up, and a fire resistant-“

“Costume,” she smirked.

The look he gave her clearly indicated he didn’t find her comment funny, “Iris. This isn’t funny.”

“What did you expect me to do, Barry?” she snapped. “Walk past a burning building? There were people inside!”

“And it’s not your job to save them!” he barked, stepping close enough she had to crane her neck to look up at him, but even the height difference wasn’t enough for her to back down. “Do you understand what it would do to me if something happened to you?”

Understanding dawned over her face and she reached up to frame his face, “It was never my intention to make you worry, and I’m sorry. And of course you and Dad would be devastated if something happened to me, just like we would be if something happened to you. But that doesn’t stop you from taking crazy chances.”

Stepping away from her hands because, honestly, a guy can only take so much.

“I’m not talking about your dad,” he yelled. “I’m talking about me, Iris! Do you get what would happen to me if something happened to you? I love you.”

She seemed baffled by his sudden declaration, “I love you too, Barry.”

“I don’t love you, Iris. I’m  _in_  love with you.”

Her mouth opened, her eyes stared at him without blinking for a full five seconds while Barry wished he was enough of a coward to run away from what he’d just done.

Or that he could go back in time to change it because, damn it, there was no going back from this.

“Barry, I…” but she seemed at a loss for words.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he assured her. “This is my deal, and I didn’t even mean to tell you. I just,” he let the sentence die off with a shrug.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you?” he asked on humorless laugh. “You mean tell you when we were living in the same house together? Tell you when I moved out and it felt like we were going in separate directions? Or how about when I woke up from a coma and you were dating Eddie?”

“I broke up with Eddie three months ago.”

“Yeah, and I thought about telling you but…how could I?” he asked, his shoulders slumping, his long limbs bending till he was sitting on the arm of his couch. Barry looked up and forced himself to meet her eyes, “How do you tell your best friend you’ve been in love with her since before you knew what love was?”

She crossed her arms, a half smile at the corner of her lips, “That sounded pretty good.”

“What?”

“You never asked why Eddie and I broke up,” she pointed out, shifting her weight from one foot to another, but when he didn’t asked she sighed with a roll of her eyes, “It was you, Barry. It was always you.”

He looked up, his heart pounding in his chest so fast he would swear it was standing still, but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, because as soon as did this bubble of hope, fragile and fluttering in his gut, would pop.

This was it. The now or never moment.

He could walk away with his heart more or less intact or he could step up and lay his soul bare, take the chance, throw the dice.

Barry rubbed his hands on his jeans, wiping away the damp along with the nerves, and stood up.


End file.
